Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

I see blending and redirection. I would have to feel it to see if it indeed collides. It may just be another use of the word. I see no clash.

Well.. IMHO I see slow but tremendous power is moving directly toward uke. There is clash but Endo shihan is matching the incoming force from uke. Since the shihan is doing so, the uke can't enter and moving around. Then the shihan can take the balance of the uke easily by blending if he wants. I think there is another video Endo shihan is using a towel to explain about the connection between nage and uke. It's the same thing like that.

Well.. IMHO I see slow but tremendous power is moving directly toward uke. There is clash but Endo shihan is matching the incoming force from uke. Since the shihan is doing so, the uke can't enter and moving around. Then the shihan can take the balance of the uke easily by blending if he wants. I think there is another video Endo shihan is using a towel to explain about the connection between nage and uke. It's the same thing like that.

Taking a sledge hammer to pound an "unknown" to fit into some terminology or a model that is "known" to you, absolutely will not result in anything accurate or helpful to your understanding of what IP/IS is. It's kinda like saying that an elephant is a big, nekkid horse with a stretched out nose, because you know what a horse is and don't want to consider that an elephant might be something else.

When the human body/mind and its complex neuromuscular physiological activities are involved, it's not so cut and dried as basic physics (or whatever it is you're referring to), any more than saying that IP/IS is a product of the force of gravity. That model is not directly relevant. Terminology here serves only to obfuscate meaning when we're all using the same words to describe different things.

I don't know whether anyone is playing with the scientific lexicon to explain IP, and I'm pretty sure that it's not necessary for learning how to do, as generations of internal-power adepts have somehow muddled by without it, but the process certainly can be described in very specific physical, instructive terms. The point here is not that no one can explain it, but that no one cares to do so on a public Internet board, for reasons that are pretty obvious... to some folks, at least.

Taking a sledge hammer to pound an "unknown" to fit into some terminology or a model that is "known" to you, absolutely will not result in anything accurate or helpful to your understanding of what IP/IS is. It's kinda like saying that an elephant is a big, nekkid horse with a stretched out nose, because you know what a horse is and don't want to consider that an elephant might be something else.

When the human body/mind and its complex neuromuscular physiological activities are involved, it's not so cut and dried as basic physics (or whatever it is you're referring to), any more than saying that IP/IS is a product of the force of gravity. That model is not directly relevant. Terminology here serves only to obfuscate meaning when we're all using the same words to describe different things.

I don't know whether anyone is playing with the scientific lexicon to explain IP, and I'm pretty sure that it's not necessary for learning how to do, as generations of internal-power adepts have somehow muddled by without it, but the process certainly can be described in very specific physical, instructive terms. The point here is not that no one can explain it, but that no one cares to do so on a public Internet board, for reasons that are pretty obvious... to some folks, at least.

If something exists, it can be explained by physics. And sure, I do not need to understand how an internal combustion engine works in order to own a car, but the engineering degree sure makes driving the car a more controlled and enjoyable experience, makes fixing or modifying the car MUCH MUCH easier, and makes educating someone else on how to operate, repair, maintain and customize their car much easier.

Complex neuromuscular physiology is basic physics, from the ion pumps that transmit nerve impulses to the force vectors inherent in a muscle contracting in order to move a bone or two. This IP stuff is SCREAMING for an ambitious bioengineering grad student at a liberal and well funded college, or a couple NSF grants. Hmmmmmm. IP or sustainable energy engineering? Hmmmmm.

I doubt anyone would consent to performing their stuff stuck full of EMG leads. Suckers hurt.....

Oh yes. It is very difficult to do (mean: to explain, to "understand", to exchange) this with only words ... :-)

To get a hint maybe:

Make a fist with your left hand in front of your breast, arm horizontally, knuckles pointing to the right. Touch this fist "at the front" with you right palm. (like tori does with uke in the video). Now gently but clearly push the fist over to the left. Fist should give some resistance.
The feeling in fist and the palm is "a little bit similar" to the feeling in the hands (only then hands!) of tori and uke during the exercise shown in the video: To "press/push" someone with one's palm and being "pressed/pushed".

This does not show, what or how the body feels and how you "steer" uke using this atari. But maybe you might get an idea about the "construction" oft this way of contact: Instead of combine/blend my ki with uke's and give the new stream of those two ki another direction, here tori's ki goes directly to uke, meets/colides with his ki and redirect uke's(!) ki. There is no merging of tori's and uke's, but tori kind of takes over uke / uke's ki and now tori directs uke's ki.

When I started aikidō I tried to get the timing and push a swing-door, when it was just opening, moving allready away from me. I added my push. I presume a lot of aikidō Beginners did things like this. But this feeling is clearly different from the feeling of atari like it was shown in the video.

I disagree. Far as I know, most physicists disagree, too. If you doubt that, then post the physics explaining how a human goes from a walk to a run cycle. I've asked Erick numerous times to do this and so far he has not produced the required answer, instead opting to just gloss over this major failure in his physics models. And if you can't describe with physics how such a simple, human function as going from walking to running, then how can you describe complex physical actions?

Part two. Please point to any animated film which uses physics to generate human movement. Or do they use motion capture? Why?

Part three. Please point to the robotics industry and detail out robotics programming using physics that comes from human functionality. Or do they use if-then statements (very basic analogy)? Why?

Now, if you can use physics to validate the walk-run cycle or use physics for animated human movement, or use physics in robotics, then you've just earned a nobel prize for doing something other physicists can't explain.

Quote:

Krystal Locke wrote:

Complex neuromuscular physiology is basic physics

I disagree. Reference the above walk-run cycle above. There is no basic physics involved in that.

To complicate matters to the nth degree, IP/aiki is rewiring the body to function in a manner that is completely different than normal people. So, even if you could find the physics for normal functions of a person, it wouldn't be the same for those who have IP/aiki.

I doubt anyone would consent to performing their stuff stuck full of EMG leads. Suckers hurt.....

there was an article on Kuroda sensei. it's in french. they hooked emg to Kuroda sensei upper body and measured his muscle activities during various cutting movements. they compared that to regular people muscle activities doing the same movements. Kuroda sensei muscle usage was completely different than normal folks. it was an interesting study.

One problem is that the moment someone says "it's just athletics" or "it's just physics" doesn't necessarily mean that it's somehow common or easy. It can still be a rare thing, something that requires extensive, specialized training, and something that is quite unusual today (my personal point of view having been on the mat multiple times with multiple people). In some meaning of the words of course it is "just" physics or athletics. I personally don't believe in magic and I doubt anyone here does. So we're going off on a tangent about "science" that is simply not relevant, at least IMHO.

The deeper and more focused question in this area is whether the existing models used within those disciplines are sufficient to explain the things we're discussing. I would guess that most who are in favor of the IP/IS thing aren't satisfied with most explanations of what's going on with this stuff when we try to discuss it on a more scientific basis. Which implies that we need a better model, better vocabulary, or maybe even a specialized vocabulary that doesn't carry all the baggage of many commonly used terms that have been used for such various things.

The other side of this coin, of course, are those who are trying to make this stuff fit the current models. If the models are insufficient to explain the phenomena then the models need adjustment, expansion or change. It generally does *not* mean tossing everything away -- the existing science can be perfectly good for many things but fail when it comes to something else. Relativity didn't replace Newtonian, Quantum Mechanics didn't replace Relativity.

The understanding of human movement is necessarily a complex thing. Not only do we have an extremely complex "machine" involved, we have one that is really hard to rip apart and study in little pieces (painful to say the least). Then we add a conscious agent who has intentional control over aspects of that machine and possible there are even levels of control that could be conditioned and enhanced. So it is a complex issue.

But I don't think the problem here is in any way resolved by saying "physics explains everything" or "physics fails here". Maybe better to say "current physical models explain aspects of this as such and such and here is why" or "current physical models fail to explain this particular event because of this and that".

Personally I think the current models are limiting discussion of this. Which is why it's easy to either wave it away or to say IHTBF. But neither extreme position is proven by the apparent lack of rigorous explanation. Just like there were things that drove Einstein to formulate his theories on Brownian motion I think there is something driving the movement towards IS/IP training.

there was an article on Kuroda sensei. it's in french. they hooked emg to Kuroda sensei upper body and measured his muscle activities during various cutting movements. they compared that to regular people muscle activities doing the same movements. Kuroda sensei muscle usage was completely different than normal folks. it was an interesting study.

I disagree. Far as I know, most physicists disagree, too. If you doubt that, then post the physics explaining how a human goes from a walk to a run cycle. I've asked Erick numerous times to do this and so far he has not produced the required answer, instead opting to just gloss over this major failure in his physics models.

On the assumption that this is civil discourse, I think the word you want is "requested", not "required". The latter implies that he is somehow subject to your commands, and I'm sure that is not what you meant.

Quote:

Mark Murray wrote:

And if you can't describe with physics how such a simple, human function as going from walking to running, then how can you describe complex physical actions?

But the description is not the thing. For most of human history, there were no descriptions and no explanations of various phenomena in physics terms -- yet bumblebees still flew, and they didn't do so by magic. The fact that a comprehensive explanation isn't available (or, perhaps, just not accessible to a given audience, due to that audience's lack of prior/supporting knowledge) doesn't mean that things happen by magic, or "ki", or some other mystical "it's not physics" force.

But the description is not the thing. For most of human history, there were no descriptions and no explanations of various phenomena in physics terms -- yet bumblebees still flew, and they didn't do so by magic. The fact that a comprehensive explanation isn't available (or, perhaps, just not accessible to a given audience, due to that audience's lack of prior/supporting knowledge) doesn't mean that things happen by magic, or "ki", or some other mystical "it's not physics" force.

There's no way that Mark is saying that it's accomplished through a mystical force (IMO). I think that what he's saying is that it cannot be as simply described by physics as some people represent - or hope.

Anyway, if people hate mystical explanations than I wonder what they think of Ueshiba?

There's no way that Mark is saying that it's accomplished through a mystical force (IMO). I think that what he's saying is that it cannot be as simply described by physics as some people represent - or hope.

Anyway, if people hate mystical explanations than I wonder what they think of Ueshiba?

Best,

Chris

I follow all these posts with great interest. Thru the gamut of all the discussions regarding IP/IS, What did Ueshiba mean, Ueshiba retranslated, spirituality in Aikido, the philisophical split between East/West, etc...

I think Chris' last statement is bringing it full circle. You have a model in IP/IS that defies a simple written explanation, it defies simple mathematics, it defies breaking it down into smaller components/variables typically used in Western science...

So what was Ueshiba left with and what fit him personally? Spiritual terminology to convey a description and an idea of a feeling. Hence why everyone says IHSTBF. Then after practice, practice, practice (shugyo) you start to glimpse the feeling. Then you re-read what you once thought was spiritual mumbo jumbo and start to make sense of the message trying to be conveyed.

my 2 cents from an outsider.

Keep going, I just switch from tea to coffee to popcorn thru out the day!

There's no way that Mark is saying that it's accomplished through a mystical force (IMO). I think that what he's saying is that it cannot be as simply described by physics as some people represent - or hope.

Sure, but that doesn't exactly make it an advanced topic, does it? The average person has no physics education whatsoever, and their understanding of physics is the worst of popular science. Why expect people to express themselves fluently in a language they've never been taught? And yet, not being fluent in physics doesn't preclude knowing enough about it to have a shrewd notion that that's where the answers lie to questions like "Wow, how does so-and-so do that amazing stuff?". You don't have to be able to design an internal combustion engine to drive a car, and you don't have to be able to explain internal combustion to say "It's got something to do with combustion" (and be perfectly correct) when someone asks you what makes a car go.

If something exists, it can be explained by physics. And sure, I do not need to understand how an internal combustion engine works in order to own a car, but the engineering degree sure makes driving the car a more controlled and enjoyable experience, makes fixing or modifying the car MUCH MUCH easier, and makes educating someone else on how to operate, repair, maintain and customize their car much easier.

Complex neuromuscular physiology is basic physics, from the ion pumps that transmit nerve impulses to the force vectors inherent in a muscle contracting in order to move a bone or two. This IP stuff is SCREAMING for an ambitious bioengineering grad student at a liberal and well funded college, or a couple NSF grants. Hmmmmmm. IP or sustainable energy engineering? Hmmmmm.

I doubt anyone would consent to performing their stuff stuck full of EMG leads. Suckers hurt.....

Well, of course any kind of movement, or even non-movement, can be broken down into pure physics, just as all life processes can be parsed out to the molecular (and atomic) level. My point is that such knowledge is close to (if not entirely) useless to the actual process of learning and doing, and is just so much more clutter that obstructs the path.

What possible good is discussing the minutiae of physics in movement, when it won't do an iota of good in teaching you how to actually fire your mind and move your body properly? General concepts and principles, such as tangent points, arches, spirals, and maintenance of spherical forces are useful, but only in the context of the actions we are training within our bodies. Without an experiential understanding of what is being done with the human mind, frame and tissues to create, manipulate and manage forces/energy within the body, people are left with only conjecture of the role of theoretical physics in the process.

This is one area where Western thought remains its own worst obstacle to learning "new" concepts. At some point, we need to silence the chatter in the brain and learn to feel and do first, then discuss. So, once again... go out and train with reputable IP/IS people. It will open up a huge door to fruitful discussions.

Sure, but that doesn't exactly make it an advanced topic, does it? The average person has no physics education whatsoever, and their understanding of physics is the worst of popular science. Why expect people to express themselves fluently in a language they've never been taught? And yet, not being fluent in physics doesn't preclude knowing enough about it to have a shrewd notion that that's where the answers lie to questions like "Wow, how does so-and-so do that amazing stuff?". You don't have to be able to design an internal combustion engine to drive a car, and you don't have to be able to explain internal combustion to say "It's got something to do with combustion" (and be perfectly correct) when someone asks you what makes a car go.

I'm not sure what your point is. Nobody has asserted a mystical power source.

"It's Just Physics" Well... When I was studying biomechanics - post-grad - we were shown a film (not video) describing the study of the optimisation of a human movement.

The movement was kicking an object that was suspended at approximately waist height, about one straight leg's length away from the subject in the study.

Variables included (but were not limited to because I don't have the original document available) - neural transmission rates, muscular contraction velocities, position of the origin and insertion points of ALL the muscles involved in the motion, inertial characteristics of the limb doing the kicking, and on, and on, and on.

The computed "optimal movement" also required that the person have a weight tied to his foot so that he'd slow down enough for the available technology to obtain data (and the weight was included in the optimisation calculation). The subject in the study was standing on one leg, strapped in place so he could only move the leg being studied.

The optimization/model software was described something like - (more than 30) ordinary differential equations and (about 30) variables, requiring 27 hours computing with a PDP11 computer (it was the 1970s, a 1990s 386 could probably whip this off in an hour or so)

The subject in the study was able to learn the movement and actually match the movement predicted by the "optimised" model.

Now - take a free-standing human. 208 bones (IIRC), all them muscles (all them different contractile properties from fast twitch to slow twitch), neural transmission rates, reflex loops, ion channels for repolarization of a nerve or muscle surface, and it comes down to physics - from the neural depolarizations that happen in the brain when the decision is made to move, the action potential jumping down the axons via electro-chemical reactions (physics), to the chemicals crossing the synapses at the end of the nerves and stimulating the muscle, to the calcium ions travelling through the sarcoplasmic reticulum into the muscle fibre stimulating the muscle fibre to contract, to the ATP being split to ADP+P+energy which causes the muscle to contract at the microscopic level, to the tendon being pulled by the contracting muscle, and eventually to the surface of the limb that's being moved by the muscle contraction - all of it - ALL is caused at some stage by "physics" - the interaction of molecules (some call it chemistry, too, but even chemistry depends on the "physics" of the atomic and molecular shapes/sizes/bonds to make things move.

Just because ithe human body is a REALLY complex machine that is VERY difficult to explain in complete detail doesn't make it magic. It's Physics, but we humans haven't figured out how to explain it all in those terms - so we make up magical things about people who have achieved a standard of ability greater than ours. (or do we call them "gods"?)

On the assumption that this is civil discourse, I think the word you want is "requested", not "required". The latter implies that he is somehow subject to your commands, and I'm sure that is not what you meant.

Hi Mary. Yes and no.

Yes, you're right in that overall for the topic, things are requested. In my sentence, I wrote that "I've asked Erick ..." That is my civil discourse request.

No, I actually did mean "required" -- but it is in regards to physics. The answer is required for anyone to use physics as a model to explain aikido. That answer and more. If someone cannot provide that answer, then their entire basis for using physics falls completely apart.

Quote:

Mary Malmros wrote:

But the description is not the thing. For most of human history, there were no descriptions and no explanations of various phenomena in physics terms -- yet bumblebees still flew, and they didn't do so by magic. The fact that a comprehensive explanation isn't available (or, perhaps, just not accessible to a given audience, due to that audience's lack of prior/supporting knowledge) doesn't mean that things happen by magic, or "ki", or some other mystical "it's not physics" force.

I think that one day, physics will get advanced enough to explain things. But that day isn't today and tomorrow is highly unlikely.

In the interim, we come up with wonderful descriptive terms for training. Sometimes those terms are far outside the normal that it borders on hilarious. Bendy straw, for example. Anyway, using basic physics principles of levers and such can be used as a *descriptive* example for physical jujutsu level skills. Even then, it isn't that you are applying physics to explain what's happening, but you are using descriptive terms to get people to understand a function of training.

When you cross over into IP/aiki, none of the physics "descriptive" terminology works. And to try to use physics to actually explain what's happening ... requires far more advanced people than the entire world has today.

Quote:

Mary Malmros wrote:

Sure, but that doesn't exactly make it an advanced topic, does it? The average person has no physics education whatsoever, and their understanding of physics is the worst of popular science. Why expect people to express themselves fluently in a language they've never been taught? And yet, not being fluent in physics doesn't preclude knowing enough about it to have a shrewd notion that that's where the answers lie to questions like "Wow, how does so-and-so do that amazing stuff?". You don't have to be able to design an internal combustion engine to drive a car, and you don't have to be able to explain internal combustion to say "It's got something to do with combustion" (and be perfectly correct) when someone asks you what makes a car go.

Cars, planes, trains are all inorganic metal. Physics has a much, much better grasp of explaining their functionality. Someone can use basic physics to understand levers, lift, friction, etc in the world of nonliving things. Someone can use basic physics to explain levers, lift, friction, etc in the world of nonliving things.

People are not the same. While you can use basic physics as a descriptive analogy/metaphor for certain aspects of physical training, that is nowhere near using physics to actually explain what is going on.

What Erick tries to do is use the nonliving metal physics to actually explain what is going on in living people. Something that even the best, brightest, most brilliant of all scientists/physicists/biologists/engineers/etc in the entire world cannot do. The human body is far too complex for our current understanding of physics to explain. And that's just normal, everyday, common things that people do, including aikido training. When you involve IP/aiki, that complexity is raised a thousand fold, possibly more.

As Chris said, no, it isn't some mystical energy/force. It is the body functioning in a very different, complex manner.

Anyway, if people hate mystical explanations than I wonder what they think of Ueshiba?
Best,
Chris

They couldn't say much about him back then. That's because he proved it. Make no mistake they came to test him! Then, as now, once they put their hands on him all debate was over. No one could do anything to him in person... but there was no venue to discredit him. Now you have the internet. Pot shots, character assassinations, physics debates, athletic debates, credential debates....
All done from the safety of a computer, because in person..well..they know what has happened...what ALWAYS happens.

Personally, I am amused at reading so many people arguing that everyone is supposed to feel the same and actually wanting to feel and move like everyone else, and being happy about it.
I like it. It makes demonstrating the difference so easy.

It is weird since the history of Ueshiba kept referring-over and over- to how he...felt....different.
I haven't met the Shihan yet who has explained what he was doing, why he was doing it, where it came from, and how to do it.
Dan

All done from the safety of a computer, because in person..well..they know what has happened...what ALWAYS happens.

So why is it that you won't meet me in person????

I would love to see what ALWAYS happens. Yet when you find someone like me, who openly states that what you are saying doesn't add up, you stay behind your computer instead of meeting with me publicly so you can show what you claim.

As this debate has gone on, I have gotten a lot of emails. Emails from people like me, who said you did the same thing to them, you made outrageous claims, then wouldn't let them come to your seminars.

If you don't want to meet me at a seminar, I would be happy to meet with you anytime you're in California. I would love to "touch hands" with you. As a professional martial artist shouldn't you be interested in making that happen?? I claim that all the "work" you have done is for not. I guess you could simply "sit behind your computer" and argue with me. Or you could show me, but you'd have to leave the keyboard to do that, Dan...

I would love to see what ALWAYS happens. Yet when you find someone like me, who openly states that what you are saying doesn't add up, you stay behind your computer instead of meeting with me publicly so you can show what you claim.

As this debate has gone on, I have gotten a lot of emails. Emails from people like me, who said you did the same thing to them, you made outrageous claims, then wouldn't let them come to your seminars.

If you don't want to meet me at a seminar, I would be happy to meet with you anytime you're in California. I would love to "touch hands" with you. As a professional martial artist shouldn't you be interested in making that happen?? I claim that all the "work" you have done is for not. I guess you could simply "sit behind your computer" and argue with me. Or you could show me, but you'd have to leave the keyboard to do that, Dan...

Just a suggestion: the fact that you are making this personal is why Dan probably doesn't want to see you. Why does it have to be about Dan? To be fair, he has pointed to the work and that it is not him, but to the work he is pointing to. There are other guys that are doing this besides him. Sam Chin was out there in Oakland I believe in October..you can probably catch him there again. I think some California peeps are trying to get Ark to do a seminar out there. The point is to touch hands with people like this, and to get out there, not make it frigging personal, and avoid making conclusions on the intr4w3b.

Also, Dan, when the heck did you become a professional martial artist?? I didn tknow he was a professional martial artist.

Last edited by Lorel Latorilla : 11-27-2012 at 12:48 PM.

Unless stated otherwise, all wisdom, follies, harshness, malice that may spring up from my writing are attributable only to me.